Graduate Training Opportunities
William Briggs, former Graduate Research Assistant and Thomsen Wisconsin
Distinguished Graduate Fellow, working with elementary school students in the laboratory
The University of Wisconsin is widely recognized as a premier graduate training institution. Plant biology is widely distributed across the campus, and includes faculty, staff, and students in departments such as Agronomy, Plant Pathology, Horticulture, Entomology, Forestry, Biochemistry, Genetics, Food Science, Botany, and a large group of interdepartmental training programs. For general information on graduate school and graduate programs at UW, please click here.
Graduate training in plant biology at UW-Madison can be accomplished in many departments and programs. Each laboratory may participate in multiple training programs, and this can make the application process confusing for incoming students. In my lab, graduate students come from several different training programs. A description of these follows.
Most of the graduate students in our laboratory are in the Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics Program, which is an interdisciplinary program encompassing seven departments and two colleges. The Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics Program offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. The program has more than 50 graduate students and 35 faculty trainers, and is one of the largest training programs for students in plant breeding in the U.S.
Another option for graduate training is the Department of Horticulture, which offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Horticulture, the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Nutritional Sciences, and the Biotechnology Training Program. Irwin Goldman is a faculty trainer in these programs and can work with students obtaining degrees in any of these programs.
A new graduate training program, called the Coordinated Program in Plant Biology, was started on campus in 2003. This program was designed to allow incoming graduate students interested in plant biology to rotate in up to three laboratories during their first semester on campus. The program has limited funds for fellowships to support these rotations, and students must then be supported by the lab they choose for the remainder of their graduate work. The advantage to this program is that students need not choose their primary lab or department for graduate work prior to starting school. Instead, they can come and sample some of the diversity in plant science labs on campus and make their choice after their first semester of graduate work.
Many of our graduate students are supported by research or teaching assistantships. Assistantships are awarded on a competitive basis. Funding for assitantships may come from gifts, grants, fellowships, or a combination of sources. The availability of funding is not consistent from semester to semester and from year to year, and therefore it is helpful to check with the major professor with whom you would like to work to see if any funding for assistantships is available during the time you would like to begin graduate school.
If you have any additional questions, please contact me at ilgoldma@wisc.edu or by phone at 608-262-7781.
Department of Horticulture, 1575 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706 USA
Phone 608-262-7781 FAX 608-262-4743 Email ilgoldma@wisc.edu